> Absolutely. I was reminded just last week that DoCoMo is a DOMESTIC operator
> with 60 million Japanese customers, and they are interested in serving those
> customers as best they can. That meant and means local contents, local
> contents providers, local solutions.
This is about their choice of cHTML, not about "local contents, local
contents providers, local solutions".
I can understand that back in the monopoly days of NTT, before there was a
separate DoCoMo, the company wanted to develop its own systems, hence PDC,
their own ISDN, etc. But by the time i-MODE was being dreamed up 1998 (?),
the world was already a different place. Globalisation was touching
everyone. Japan was opening up markets, the Web was firmly established, etc.
etc. And more Japanese than ever travel around the world on business and
pleasure. So I just find it hard to understand why, at that point in time,
they decided to forge their own way again, with no hope at all of being able
to get anyone else to follow their lead (in 1998 terms, at least. Maybe that
will change.)
We see today that they are trying to buy their way into other markets. Most
people acknowledge that to compete in the wireless world the carriers are
going to have to have go global. So why wouldn't they throw their hat in
with everyone else and work to overcome some of WAP's difficulties, rather
than trying to force a Japan-only standard again. They still could have had
the payment system, the great content, etc., using WAP rather than cHTML.
What I don't understand is how they can still be so insular. 60 million
domestic customers are not going to be enough for the carrier of the future.
Why not try to harmonise with the rest of the world?
Anyway, I don't want to drag this on any longer. We'll talk more on Friday!
Brent
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Brent Bossom
brentbossom@mac.com
mobile: 090-4427-7255
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Received on Thu Aug 17 05:11:15 2000